Town and country

In a new series of cycle rides for Scotland Magazine Paul Kirkwood will go mountain biking in the Borders, pedal around lochs in Perthshire and cycle to the smithy where the bicycle was born. He starts in the capital

You don’t need me to tell you about the appeal of the centre of Edinburgh. But what about the suburbs? Running through them to the southwest and out into the countryside is a cycle route along a canal, river and railway trackbed which provides an ideal introduction to another side of the city, as I found out.

A few turns after setting off from Waverley station and with some careful sign-following I reached the start of the Union Canal.

Here the arch of Leamington lift bridge – officially re-opened after restoration last year – provides a sort of starting gate for the long, trafficfree majority of the route.

A short way further is another fine piece of civil engineering: the aqueduct over the Water of Leith.

Signs instructed me to dismount but I didn’t need much persuading once I’d seen the narrow, one-metre width of the walkway beside the water. I didn’t know how deep the canal was at this point and didn’t want to find out.

Moorhens and magpies were my only company excluding the pair of miners carved from a tree trunk and half-hidden in the bushes beside the path. Their alert expressions and uprightness made the figures all the more startling.

I swapped one former highway for another to continue my journey along a disused railway line. It’s a real Thomas the Tank Engine affair complete with a curving, horse-shoe shaped tunnel through a hillside which is long enough to need to be lit by a line of roof lights.

A return to the waterside wasn’t far away – in the form of th.....

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By Paul Kirkwood

Section : Scottish Cycling

Page number : 24